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CHAPTER - II

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

2.1 Introduction

The present chapter is an endeavor to briefly describe the existing studies on women empowerment, investment pattern and behaviour of women investors. With the growing importance of the subject understudy, some literature, covering different aspects of investors preferences have been produced by economists, researchers and practitioners. The more important aspects of existing research studies include the following (i) Reviews of Women empowerment studies; (ii) Reviews of Investor behaviour in Indian capital market investment.

2.2 Reviews of Women Empowerment Studies

A number of studies have been carried out in India and elsewhere that have tried to look in to the empowerment of women. Standing, (1989)1 states that when womens earnings or wage employment increases, there are clear and direct positive impacts on womens autonomy and empowerment.

Snow, (1990)2 JSI researchers identified six general areas or domains in which empowerment of women is believed to be taking place as a result of Grameen Bank, BRAC and other credit programs: a sense of self and vision of a future, mobility and visibility, economic security, status and decision-making power within the household, ability to interact effectively in the public sphere and participation in non-family groups. Thus, their concept of empowerment can be looked at in a behavioural sense as the ability to take effective action

1 Standing, G. Global feminization through flexible labour World Development, A Working Paper.

1989, 17, 7: 1077-95. 2 Snow, John. Empowerment of Women Program, A Working Paper, 1990.

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Batliwala, S. (1994)3 this paper analyses the concept of womens empowerment and outlines empowerment strategies based on insights gained through a study of grassroots programmes in South Asia. They clearly state that womens empowerment requires the challenging of patriarchal power relations that result in

women having less control over material assets and intellectual resources. The empowerment process starts from within but access to new ideas and information will come from external agents. With new consciousness and the strength of solidarity, women can assert their right to control resources and to participate equally in decision-making.

Albee, (1994)4 concludes economic empowerment projects usually focus on income-generating activities, which allow women to independently acquire their income. Income-generating activities encompass a wide range of areas, such as small business promotion, cooperatives, job creation schemes, sewing circles and credit and savings groups

Lourene E. Shields (1995)5 provided an exploratory framework to understand and develop the concept of empowerment both from a theoretical and practical perspective with a particular focus on womens perception of the meaning of

empowerment in their lives.

Human Development Report (1995)6 gave special emphasis on women empowerment. It mainly concerned on formulation and utilization of measure of gender equality and inequality and the identification of efforts and contribution made

3 Batliwala, S. (1994), The Meaning of Women's Empowerment: New Concepts Harvard University

Press http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/SENPOP.html 4 Albee, A., Support to Womens Productive and Income-Generating Activities. UNICEF Evaluation

and Research Working Paper Series No. 1, 1994. 5 Bidisha Mahanta, Women Empowerment in Assam, A Human Development Approach, working

paper, department of Economics, North Eastern Hill Universiy, Shillong, 2008. 6 Bidisha Mahanta, Women Empowerment in Assam, A Human Development Approach, working

paper, department of Economics, North Eastern Hill Universiy, Shillong, 2008.

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by women that go unrecognized in standard national income and employment statistics.

Karl (1995)7 without the active participation of women and incorporation of womens perspectives at all levels of decision-making, the goals of equality development and peace cannot be achieved.

Amarnath et al. (1996)8 have described the consequences of middle-class women taking up economically productive roles. The study examines whether the gender bias of men has undergone some change in the recent past. In order to carry out the analysis, the study uses six parameters role perception, say in decision-making, acquisition of assets, economic freedom, spouses co-operation, and perception of status change. A sample of 68 middle-class women employed in different sectors of Anantapur District (Andhra Pradesh) within the age group of 20 to 45 years was selected. The findings indicate that the employment of women has led to the women having a greater say in the decision-making process and thus, has lessened the degree of gender bias.

Buvinic (1996)9 states that the most straightforward vehicle to empower poor women is to increase their productivity in home and market production and the income they obtain from work. The ILO (2002, in Kessides, 2005) has proposed various strategies to combat this problem, such as increasing womens access to land and other assets.

7 Karl M 1995. Women in Empowerment. Participation and Decision-Making, New Jersey: Zed Books

Publishing House. 8 Amarnath R. and Ch., Umamohan, Gender and Work, Contemporary Indian Women Collected

Works, Vol. 6, New Academic Publications, Delhi, 1996.

9 Buvinic, M., Promoting Employment Among the Urban Poor in Latin America and the Caribbean:

A Gender Analysis. Geneva: ILO, 1996.

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Goetz and Gupta, (1996)10 Offering women a source of credit has been found to be a very successful strategy for alleviating poverty because it enhances the productivity of their own small enterprises and the income-generating activities in which they invest. Results include an increase in womens self-confidence and status within their families as well as income that can be used to improve their families well-being through improved health and nutrition

Rekha Mehra (1997)11 this paper emphasises that development policies and programs tend not to view women as integral to the economic development process. This is reflected in the higher investments in women's reproductive rather than their productive roles, mainly in population programs. Yet women throughout the developing world engage in economically productive work and earn incomes. They work primarily in agriculture and in the informal sector and, increasingly, in formal wage employment. Their earnings, however, are generally low. Since the 1950s, development agencies have responded to the need for poor women to earn incomes by making relatively small investments in income-generating projects. Often such projects fail because they are motivated by welfare and not development concerns, offering women temporary and part-time employment in traditionally feminine skills such as knitting and sewing that have limited markets. By contrast, over the past twenty years, some non-governmental organizations, such as the Self-Employed Women's Association in India, have been effective in improving women's economic status because they have started with the premise that women are fundamental to the process of economic development.

10 Goetz, A. and R. Sen Gupta.. Who Takes the Credit? Gender, Power and Control Over Loan Use in

Rural Credit Programs in Bangladesh. World Development, 1996, p. 24(1): 45-63. 11

Rekha Mehra, Women ,Empowerment and Economic development, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Sage Publications,Vol. 554, November, 1997.

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Kabeers (1998, 1999)12 view of empowerment refers to the processes by which those who have been denied the ability to make choices acquire such ability. The fundamentals of empowerment have been defined as agency (the ability to define ones goals and act upon them), awareness of gendered power structures, self-esteem and self-confidence (Kabeer 2001)13 he points out that a distinction has to be made about the type of choice, and the focus necessarily has to be on strategic life choices, that is choices that shape livelihoods or are critical for people to live the lives they want. The expansion in the range of potential choices available to women includes three inter-related dimensions that are inseparable in determining the meaning of an indicator and hence its validity as a measure of empowerment. These dimensions are (1) Resources: The pre-condition necessary for women to be able to exercise choice; women must have access and future claims to material, human and social resources; (2) Agency: The process of decision-making, including negotiation, deception and manipulation that permit women to define their goals and act upon them; (3) Achievements: The well-being outcomes that women experience as a result of access to resources and agency.

Kabeer, N. (1999)14 This paper sets out from the understanding that empowerment is a process by which those who have been denied power gain power, in particular the ability to make strategic life choices. For women, these could be the capacity to choose a marriage partner, a livelihood, or whether or not to have children. For this power to come about three interrelated dimensions are needed: access to and control of resources; agency (the ability to use these resources to bring about new opportunities) and achievements (the attainment of new social outcomes).

12 Kabeer, N.. Can't buy me love? Re-evaluating gender, credit and empowerment in rural

Bangladesh. IDS Discussion Paper No. 363,1998. And Institute of Development Studies, Sussex. Kabeer, Naila. Resources, Agency, Achievements: Reflections on the Measurement of Womens Empowerment, Development and Change Vol. 30, Institute of Social Studies, Oxford, UK, 1999. 13

Kabeer, N.. Conflicts over credit: Re-evaluating the empowerment potential of loans to women in rural Bangladesh, World Development, 2001, pg. 29(1), 6384. 14Kabeer, N., Resources, Agency, Achievements: Reflections on the Measurement of Women's Empowerment. Development and Change, Volume 30, Number 3, July 1999. Blackwell publishing.

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They convey the belief that social change can be predicted and prescribed in a cause and effect way and undermine the notion that womens empowerment should be about the ability of women to make self-determined choices.

Khan (1999)15 stresses the importance of wage employment over credit for women. His findings show that wage employment helps in promoting economic and social empowerment, providing women with more stability, a collective workplace and more control over their income. He also emphasizes its ability to assist in expanding a womans mobility by providing her with different life experiences beyond her home environment so that she is able to gain bargaining power, meet her practical needs, improve the quality of her life and address her long-term goals.

INTRAC, (2000)16, This resource document presents an overview of the common approaches to empowerment in development, key issues for monitoring and evaluating, and methods and instruments for collecting information.

Mayoux, and Jejeebhoy (2000)17 identifies social institutions as highly influential in shaping a womans autonomy. He believes that these institutions should provide comprehensive, direct and context-specific strategies to empower women. These strategies include creating gender consciousness, enabling women to mobilize community resources and public services, providing support to the challenges of traditional norms and providing access to vocational and life skills to increase womens access to and control over economic resources.

15 Khan, M. , Microfinance, Wage Employment and Housework: A Gender Analysis. Development in

Practice, 1999, p. 424-436. 16

INTRAC, The Monitoring And Evaluation Of Empowerment A Resource Document, International NGO Training and Research Centre, Oxford, 2000. http://intrac.client.fatbeehive.com/docs/OPS26final.pdf 17

Jejeebhoy, S., Womens Education, Autonomy, and Reproductive Behaviour: Experience from Developing Countries. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

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Manimekalai., N and Rajeswari, G., (2000)18 reveals that women empowerment has been the concern of academicians, women associations activists, policy makers etc in recent years. But the empowerment cannot be brought out overnight. The women association claims that Government should have an agenda with provisions for women to contribute equally to the society as their counterparts. It is because they were not given opportunities in the traditional society. But the time has changed and women are increasingly recognized as productive human agents and thanks to the Government of India which declare as the Women Empowerment year. Women empowerment can be achieved through many ways by providing education, economic opportunities, imparting, providing decision making skill, involving them in policy making etc. However, economic independence has been considered by many experts as the least instrument of empowerment of women.

Mayoux (2000)19 defines empowerment as a process of change in power relations that is both multidimensional and interlinked. She has laid out a framework that is useful for developing strategies for womens empowerment. He points out in his report one of the most popular forms of economic empowerment for women is

microfinance, which provides credit for impoverished women who are usually excluded from formal credit institutions. He highlights three models of microfinance financial self-sustainability, Poverty alleviation, and Feminist empowerment.

Hainard and Verschuur (2001)20 emphasize that empowerment should be a process of developing negotiating skills from the bottom up to redress unequal power relations and produce new development paradigms. To successfully empower women, both gender and empowerment concerns should be integrated into every

18 Manimegalai., N and Rajeswari, G., Empowerment of Women Through self-help Groups,

MARGIN, Vol. 32, No. 41, July Sep. 2000. 19

Mayoux, L.. Microfinance and the empowerment of women: A review of the key issues. Social Finance Unit Working Paper, 23. Geneva: ILO, 2000. 20

Hainard, F. and C. Verschuur., Filling the Urban Policy Breach: Womens Empowerment, Grass-roots Organizations and Urban Governance. International Political Science Review , 2000, p.22(1): 33-54.

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service provision area. Moreover, they should be incorporated in the economic, political and social spheres as well as at the individual, household and community levels in order to overcome gender inequality.

Kabeer, N., (2001)21 This paper discusses attempts to construct indicators of womens empowerment, focusing in particular on the meanings given to these

measures and values embedded within them. Kabeer defines empowerment as the process by which those who have been denied the ability to make strategic life choices acquire such an ability (p 19). She argues that there is a wide gap between this understanding of empowerment and the more instrumentalist definition attached to efforts to measure and quantify empowerment.

Marcelle, G. (2002)22 The paper highlights successful case studies from many countries on the use of ICTs as a tool for economic empowerment, participation in

public life, and for enhancing women's skills and capabilities. It also explores strategies to integrate a gender perspective into national ICT policies. The report ends with a call to all stakeholders to work on improving connectivity, access to ICT skills training and eliminating negative behavioural attitudes to women's full engagement with ICTs.

Malhotra, Anju, et al. (2002)23 the paper presents a review of current theories and strategies to foster women's empowerment in the development context. The paper defines empowerment as the ability of people to make strategic choices in

21 Kabeer, N., Resources, Agency, Achievements: Reflections on the Measurement of Women's

Empowerment,2001, p. 17-59.

http://www.sida.se/shared/jsp/download.jsp?f=SidaStudies+No3.pdf&a=2080 22Marcelle, G. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and their Impact on and use as an Instrument for the Advancement and Empowerment of Women, 2002. http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/egm/ict2002/reports/Report-online.PDF

23 Malhotra, Anju, Measuring Womens Empowerment as a Variable in International Development,

World Bank, Gender and Development Group, Washington DC.

http://www.icrw.org/docs/MeasuringEmpowerment_workingpaper_802.doc

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areas that affect their lives. Two key factors in the process of empowerment are

identified: control over resources (the conditions for empowerment) and agency (the ability to formulate choices). The report argues that in practice, measuring empowerment depends on the establishment of universal standards (such as human rights), but at the same time must allow for indicators which are sensitive to context.

Parpart, J. L., Rai, S. and Staudt, K. (2002)24 this book calls for a new approach to empowerment, which recognises that empowerment approaches are

always embedded in institutional structures and must be understood at that level. It argues for a clearer understanding of power, and rejects the simple opposition between those who have power and those who do not. Instead, it is important to think about language, meanings, identities and cultural practices when considering womens empowerment.

Fiona Leach & Shashikala Sitaram (2002)25 This article describes an NGO project intended to empower scheduled caste women working in the silk-reeling industry in India through the provision of microfinance. It documents the impact that the project had on their economic and social status over a period of time and highlights the negative consequences of excluding male relatives from playing any meaningful role. It suggests ways in which the project might have been made more male inclusive while still empowering women. At the same time, it acknowledges that even if the men's hostility to the project had been overcome, the women's micro enterprises were unlikely to have been viable commercially. This is because the project insisted that the women operate as a group in what was a high-risk area of economic activity, with no clear strategy as to how their work could be sustained.

24 Parpart, J. L., Rai, S. and Staudt, K., Rethinking Empowerment: Gender and Development in a

Global/Local World. London, 2002. 25

Fiona Leach & Shashikala Sitaram ,Microfinance and women's empowerment: A lesson from India- Development in Practice, Volume 12, Issue 5, 2002, pages 575-588 .

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Narayan, (2002)26 defines empowerment as the processes by which women take control and ownership of their lives through expansion of their choices.

Aparna Mahanta (2002)27 sought to explain the question of womens access to or deprivation of basic human rights as the right to health, education and work, legal rights, rights of working womens, besides issues like domestic violence, all the while keeping the peculiar socio-cultural situation of the North East in mind.

Stine and Karina (2003)28 explain the term empowerment as a process by which the disempowered individuals and groups gain the power to control their lives and the ability to make strategic life choices. The researchers also emphasize that the economic elements of empowerment refer mainly to the capability of earning a living. The study finds that one of the important determinants of the low average income of women is their intermittent labour force participation, which is a consequence of their time spent on unpaid work such as childcare, housework and food production.

Pradhan, B. (2003)29 this paper argues that while these quantitative socio-economic measures of empowerment are useful indicators as a first approximation, they are not sensitive enough to capture the nuances of gender power relations. This is because quantitative methods alone are unable to capture the interactive processes through which those in a weaker position strategies ways of gaining from the unequal

relationship. Therefore in order to understand the socio-cultural context within which

26 Narayan, Deepa.. Empowerment and Poverty Reduction: A Source book. Washington: World Bank,

2002. 27

Bidisha Mahanta, Women Empowerment in Assam, A Human Development Approach, working paper, department of Economics, North Eastern Hill Universiy, Shillong, 2008. 28

Ankerbo, Stine and Hoyda, Karina, Education as a Means to Womens Empowerment, Opgave, Approaches to Development (U-landslare), Aarhus University, 2003. 29

Pradhan, B., Measuring Empowerment: A Methodological Approach, Society for International Development, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. http://www.palgrave-journals.com/development/journal/v46/n2/pdf/1110445a.pdf.

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womens behaviour in social interaction and gender relationships takes place, an in-depth anthropological method is essential.

Fiedrich, M. and Jellema, A. (2003)30 the study focuses on Reflect, an approach to participatory adult education which aims to stimulate a wider process of change in individuals and communities. It argues that although participatory approaches are usually presented as a fundamental break with top-down models of development, aid agency reports suggest that Reflect participants adopt the very same attitudes and practices long promoted by the development community. There is an obvious contradiction in the uniformity of outcomes reported and development processes which are meant to have become participatory and adapted to local needs. The paper ends by considering other development strategies which may be more effective for empowering women.

Deshmukh-Ranadive, J. (2003)31 he states in his report womens empowerment does not necessarily take place when incomes are generated, when livelihoods are enhanced or when groups are formed. This is because within families and households, hierarchies and structures do not alter. In fact, public interventions which result in new social activity or new avenues of income generation can actually

accentuate tensions within households. It is at such times that supplementary interventions are required. The intervention shows that in order to change the socio-cultural space of women in the home, other members of the household need to be involved in empowerment processes.

Mahmud (2003)32 contends that providing security of tenure will encourage more women to use their domestic space for income-generating activities. Other

30 Fiedrich, M. and Jellema, A. Literacy, Gender and Social Agency: Adventures in Empowerment,

A Research Report for Action Aid UK http://www.dfid.gov.uk/pubs/files/litgenempedpaper53.pdf. 31

Deshmukh-Ranadive, J. Placing., Gender Equity in the Family Centre Stage: Use of Kala Jatha Theatre, Economic and Political Weekly, 26 April 2003. 32

Mahmud, S., Women and the Transformation of Domestic Spaces for Income Generation in Dhaka Bustees. Cities 20(5): 321-329, 2003.

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recommendations include investing in human capital such as training for productive employment, providing financial resources with a focus on credit, expanding wage employment opportunities, improving social protection for female workers and empowering women through greater organization.

Gurumurthy, A. (2003)33 this project points out the progress in technology has encouraged many in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan to see the potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for social transformation and economic growth. This document looks at specific projects and programmes in the region which focuses on women's economic empowerment and draws lessons from these.

Vaill, S., (2003)34, This report synthesizes the key lessons learned from the Global Fund for Womens three-year Economic Opportunity Initiative. It finds that the most effective interventions for womens economic empowerment are those

efforts that iterate explicit objectives that go beyond income generation.

Kishore et al. (2004)35 shows the status of womens empowerment as a whole and in each of the Indian states in particular, with the help of NFHS-25 data sources. The sample of the study includes married women in the age group 15-49 from these states. The study divides the indicators of empowerment process into three sub-divisions: (a) the indicators of evidence of empowerment (through educational attainment); (b) the indicators of access to potential sources for empowerment which measures womens access to education and media exposure; and (c) the indicators of

33 Gurumurthy, A. Bridging the Digital Gender Divide: Issues and Insights on ICT for Womens

EconomicEmpowermenthttp://www.unifem.org.in/Bridging%20the%20Digital%20Gender%20Divide.html. 34

Vaill, S., More than Money: Strategies to Build Womens Economic Power, Impact Report No. 1: Economic Opportunity Initiative, The Global Fund for Women, San Francisco, 2003. http://globalfundforwomen.org/cms/images/stories/downloads/impact-report-1.pdf. 35

Kishore, Sunita and Gupta, Kamala, Womens Empowerment in India and Its States: Evidence from the NFHS, Economic & Political Weekly, Feb. 2004.

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the setting for empowerment, which focuses on the circumstances of the womens

lives and reflects the opportunities available to them.

Sunita Kishor and Kamla Gupta (2004)36 revealed that average women in India were disempowered absolutely relative to men, and there had been little change in her empowerment over time. The authors viewed that there were several cogent and pressing reasons for evaluating, promoting and monitoring the level of womens empowerment in India, not the least of which was that household health and nutrition was generally in the hands of women and their empowerment was necessary for ensuring not just their own welfare, but the wellbeing of households. They also asserted that empowerment was critical for the very development of India, as it enhanced the quality and quantity of human resources available for development.

Kabeer, N., (2005)37 he examines the empirical evidence on the impact of microfinance with respect to poverty reduction and the empowerment of poor women in South Asia. It finds that while access to financial services can and does make vital contributions to the economic productivity and social well-being of poor women and their households, it does not automatically empower women.

Mosedale, S. (2005)38 he briefly reviews how womens empowerment has been discussed within development studies, how the concept of power was debated and refined during the second half of the twentieth century and how power relations might be described and evaluated in a particular context. A conceptual framework of empowerment is then proposed which is based on women identifying their

36 Bidisha Mahanta, Women Empowerment in Assam, A Human Development Approach, working

paper, department of Economics, North Eastern Hill Universiy, Shillong, 2008. 37

Kabeer, N., Is Microfinance a "Magic Bullet" for Womens Empowerment?: Analysis of Findings from South Asia, Economic and Political Weekly, 29 October 2005. http://www.epw.org.in/showIndex.php. 38

Mosedale, S., Assessing Womens Empowerment: Towards a Conceptual Framework, Journal of International Development, 2005, pg. 2: 243-257.

http://www.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jissue/109931317.

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contextualized gender constraints, and the process by which women redefine and extend what is possible for them to be and do.

Grown, C., Rao Gupta, G. and Kes, A. (2005)39 points that empowered women must have equal capabilities such as education and health, and equal access to resources and opportunities such as land and employment. However they must also have the agency to use these capabilities and resources to make strategic choices. This report, prepared by the UN Millennium Project Task Force on Education and Gender Equality, identifies strategic priorities and practical actions for achieving womens empowerment by 2015.

Alsop, R. and Heinsohn, N. (2005)40 defines empowerment means as a persons capacity to make effective choices and to transform choices into desired actions and outcomes. The extent to which a person is empowered is influenced by personal agency (the capacity to make a purposive choice) and opportunity structure (the institutional context in which choice is made). It suggest various indicators to determine degrees of empowerment are; for agency, asset endowments- psychological, informational, organisational, material, social, financial or human; for

opportunity structure, the presence and operation of formal and informal institutions, including the laws, regulatory frameworks, and norms governing behaviour.

Moghadam, V.M. and Senftova, L. (2005)41 defines empowerment as a multi-dimensional process of civil, political, social, economic, and cultural

39 Grown, C., Rao Gupta, G. and Kes, A., Taking Action: Achieving Gender Equality and

Empowering Women, UN Millennium Project Task Force on Education and Gender Equality, Earthscan, London. 40

Alsop, R. and Heinsohn, N., Measuring Empowerment in Practice: Structuring Analysis and Framing Indicators, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 3510. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTEMPOWERMENT/Resources/41307_wps3510.pdf. 41Moghadam, V.M. and Senftova, L., Measuring Womens Empowerment: Participation And Rights In Civil, Political, Social, Economic, And Cultural Domains, International Social Science Journal, 57, 2, pp. 389-412(24). http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/issj/2005/00000057/00000002/art00015.

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participation and rights. To analyse these, a framework using six key domains is presented. These are used to assess womens participation (referring to an active social condition), rights (referring to a formal, legal condition) and capabilities (preconditions for the enjoyment of rights and enhancement of participation).

Kabeer, N. (2005)42 worked on the third Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on gender equality and womens empowerment and highlights ways in which the indicators associated with this goal womens access to education, share of non-agricultural wage employment, and political participation can contribute to womens empowerment. Each of these indicators has the potential to bring about immediate changes in womens lives, along with long-term transformations in patriarchal power structures.

Rae Lesser Blumberg (2005)43 viewed that economic empowerment of women was the key to achieve gender equality as well as wealth and well being of nation. The author opined that financial autonomy would enhance womens capacity of decision making in various arenas of life. Moreover, it would lead to less corruption, less armed conflict and less violence against female in the long run.

Kabeer, N. (2005)44 examines the empirical evidence on the impact of microfinance with respect to poverty reduction and the empowerment of poor women in South Asia. It becomes apparent that while access to financial services can and does make vital contributions to the economic productivity and social well-being of poor women and their households, it does not automatically empower women.

42 Kabeer, N. Gender Equality and Womens Empowerment: A Critical Analysis of the Third

Millennium Development Goal, Gender and Development, 13.1, March 2005. 43

Bidisha Mahanta, Women Empowerment in Assam, A Human Development Approach, 2008. 44

Kabeer, N. Is Microfinance a "Magic Bullet" for Womens Empowerment?: Analysis of Findings from South Asia, Economic and Political Weekly. 29 October 2005. http://www.epw.org.in/showIndex.php.

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Tandley Omprakash Sridevi (2005)45 express the view that characterizing the women empowerment tries to obtain a scientific measure of empowerment. The measure obtained in this paper is argued to be scientific because the theoretical model is proved to be more realistic by building another empirical model to capture the self-perception of the women, for their empowerment. The result of the empirical models helps to deduce some of the most crucial factors to be considered by the social planner for any policy initiatives in this regard. Therefore empowering women is an important end in itself, not only as a human rights issue but also as having the potential to enhance human well being. Empowering women and improving their status are essential ingredients for realizing the full potential of the economic and political development of the entire society thus ensuring sustainable development.

Mayoux, L. (2006)46 noted that women's access to microfinance services have significantly increased over the past two decades. By enhancing women's ability to earn an income, these programmes have the potential to initiate a series of

virtuous spirals of economic empowerment and increased well-being for women and their families. However, this paper challenges assumptions about the automatic benefits of micro-finance for women.

San Pedro, P., (2006)47 in his note on empowerment in post-conflict scenarios, identifies the difficulty in monitoring and evaluating changes in empowerment, particularly for conflict prevention and peace building. It provides a set of tools to promote empowerment according to different dimensions; economic; institutional; socio-cultural; personal; psychological; and organisational.

45 Tandley Omprakash Sridevi Empowerment of Women: A Systematic Analysis working paper June

2005. 46Mayoux, L. Womens Empowerment through Sustainable Micro-Finance: Rethinking Best Practice

http://www.enterprise-impact.org.uk/pdf/WomensEmpowermentthroughSustainableMicrofinance.pdf 47

San Pedro, P., Empowerment in Practice: Post-conflict Scenarios, FRIDE DevelopmentIn Perspective, FRIDE, Madridn,2006. http://www.fride.org/publication/36/empowerment-in-practice:-post-conflict-scenarios

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Pitt, M., Khandker, S. and Cartwright, J (2006)48 This article examines the effects of mens and womens participation in group-based microcredit programmess on various indicators of womens empowerment in rural Bangladesh. The results are consistent with the view that womens participation in micro credit programmes helps to increase womens empowerment. Credit programmess lead to women taking a greater role in household decision making, having greater access to financial and economic resources, having greater social networks, having greater bargaining power vis-a-vis their husbands, and having greater freedom of mobility. They also tend to increase spousal communication in general about family planning and parenting concerns. The effects of male credit on womens empowerment were generally negative. The presence of male micro credit programs had a negative effect on an overall measure of empowerment for eligible households and specifically on womens control of resources, finance, freedom of movement and development of networks, and on fertility and parenting decisions.

BRIDGE, (2007)49, this report explains what is meant by gender-sensitive indicators and measurements of change. It makes the case for gender-sensitive measurements and outlines how to go about measuring in practice. According to the analysis, empowerment combines not only observable action, but also the meaning, motivation and purpose attributed to such action. As such, womens empowerment must be measured along a number of indicators. Moreover, purely quantitative indicators may not be sensitive enough to capture the nuances of gendered power relations inherent in empowerment processes; nor can they measure an individuals (subjective) sense of agency or self-worth. The report identifies a key challenge as balancing the need for both universal standards to measure empowerment and

48 Pitt, M., Khandker, S. and Cartwright, J., 2006, Empowering Women with Micro Finance: Evidence

from Bangladesh, Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago http://www.pstc.brown.edu/~mp/papers/EDCC2006.pdf 49

BRIDGE, Measuring womens empowerment conceptual frameworks, methodologies and indicators Conceptual frameworks, Gender and Indicators, Cutting Edge Pack, Bridge, IDS, Brighton, 2007. http://www.bridge.ids.ac.uk/go/bridge-publications

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context-sensitive indicators. One approach is to use multi-level indicators, where broader-level indicators might be applicable across a range of contexts, while indicators at the community and household level might be adapted for specific contexts.

World Bank, (2007)50, This learning module provides a tool for understanding the concept of empowerment and for using it in development practice. The module offers a framework for conceptualizing empowerment and takes participants through case-based exercises that apply the framework to the analysis, design, implementation, and monitoring of development policies and operations.

Van Hung, N., 2007,51 EEOW is a gender-specific employment promotion programme for women in poverty. It aims to improve the socio-economic status of

women by supporting the work of community-based womens groups, raising awareness on gender relations, setting up savings and credit groups, providing skills training, improving market linkages and providing technical and financial support to pilot projects in support of national efforts.

Maarten van Rooij (2007)52 Financial Literacy and Stock Market Participation this paper analysis of individuals are increasingly put in charge of their financial security after retirement. Moreover, the supply of complex financial

products has increased considerably over the years. However, investors still have little or no information about whether individuals have the financial knowledge and skills to navigate this new financial environment. Finally, the report evidence of an independent effect of financial literacy on stock market participation: Those who have low financial literacy are significantly less likely to invest in stocks.

50 World Bank, 2007, Empowerment in Practice: Analysis and Implementation A World Bank

Learning Module, World Bank, Washington.

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/WBI/Resources/EmpowermentLearningModulebody.pdf 51

Van Hung, N., ILO/Japan Asian Regional Programme on Expansion of Employment Opportunities for Women (EEOW) - Vietnam Chapter Report of Independent Final, ILO, Hanoi , 2007. 52

Maarten van Rooij, Financial Literacy and Stock Market Participation, ICFAI journal, 2008.

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AfDB/ILO, (2007)53 This guide is based around the AfDB/ILO Integrated Framework for assessing the enabling environment for the growth of womens enterprises. It is based on the proposition that if women are equipped with the necessary resources, skills and opportunities to start stronger businesses, and if they are more readily able to pursue the growth potential of these enterprises, the economy will benefit from reduced poverty, from greater employment and from economic growth. The women entrepreneurs will be able to grow their own enterprises and become more significant actors in national economies. In addition, avenues will be opened for the greater social inclusion of women in the public domain, greater gender equality, and enhanced economic empowerment of women.

ADB, (2007)54 the main objective of this special evaluation study was to assess the extent to which selected Asian Development Bank (ADB) microfinance projects have reduced the poverty of rural poor households and improved the socioeconomic status of women in developing member countries.

UNFPA (2007)55 many studies have recognized the importance of improving the status of impoverished women. This workshop report describes a number of approaches used to date to empower women economically, including microcredit. The report includes a review of the literature on women's economic empowerment and a summary of presentations from the workshop.

53 AfDB/ILO, , Assessing the Enabling Environment for Women in Growth Enterprises: An AfDB/ILO

Integrated Framework Assessment Guide, Asian Development Bank, Manila, 2007. http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/ed_emp/mp_ent/documents/publication/wcms_116163.pdf\ 54

ADB, Effect of microfinance operations on poor households and the status women, Asian Development Bank, Operations Evaluation Department Special Evaluation Study, Manila 2007. http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/46/15/39503711.pdf. 55

UNFPA, Women's Economic Empowerment: Meeting the Needs of Impoverished Women , working report, 2007.

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Centre for Economic and Business Research, (2008)56, This study synthesises relevant knowledge about how and when specific project level instruments and/or policy interventions work to increase gender equality and to foster economic development through increased empowerment of women.

Prof. G.S. Monga, (2008)57 has highlighted that the exponents of many religions and philosophers have constantly written against women empowerment and their opinions are highly biased. Women empowerment is the natural corollary of democracy. It leads to higher productivity, efficiency and better socio-economic development.

Dr.Ram Vinay Prasad Singh, (2008)58 in his paper Women Empowerment and Development: Global Scenario and Indian Experience has focused on era of global consensus for women empowerment with reference to the Millennium declaration signed at the United Nation Millennium Summit in 2000 as one of the eight goals. He has emphasised on the decentralized democratic way of governance through Panchayat Raj Institution in India in the process of women empowerment with special reference to 73rd Constitution Amendment, December, 1992.

Dr. Puspa Tarafdar, (2008)59 has evaluated the approach of women empowerment in the context of south Asian countries, including India in her paper Policies and Programmes of women Empowerment in the South Context. She has

56 Centre for Economic and Business Research, Economic Empowerment of Women, Evaluation

Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs/Danida, Denmark, 2008. http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/48/18/42211306.pdf. 57

G.S. Monga, Dialectics of women Empowerment New Dimensions of Women Empowerment, Ajit Kumar Sinha, Deep & Deep Publications pvt. Ltd, New Delhi, 2008, P. 3-8. 58

Ram Vinay Prasad Singh, Women Empowerment and Development: Global Scenario and Indian Experience, New Dimensions of Women Empowerment, Ajit Kumar Sinha, Deep & Deep Publications pvt. Ltd, New Delhi, 2008. 59

Puspa Tarafdar, Policies and Programmes of women Empowerment in the South Context, New Dimensions of Women Empowerment, Ajit Kumar Sinha, Deep & Deep Publications pvt. Ltd, New Delhi, 2008.

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opined that empowerment of women cannot happen unless they are provided with adequate income generating activities through wage and self-employment, whereas lower wages for women is still a reality. She has highlighted the role of Microfinance in Womens livelihood programmes, with special reference to Bangaladesh.

Dr. Padmavathi Dasharathi, (2008)60 has evaluated the economic and social dimensions of women empowerment. She has concluded that it is time to address discrimination against women, ensure them the power to make decision, to earn a living and protection from violence, abuse and exploitation.

Dr.Nishikant Jha, (2008)61 has highlighted the worldwide recognition of women empowerment and the Government of India has taken several measures to empowerment of women including giving them educational facilities, employment and entrepreneurship opportunities.

Dr.K.K Pandey, (2008)62 has evaluated the pitiable status of women in India in the background of five year plans, since First Five year plan. He has cited the deity of Shakti Goddess Durga as an example of complete empowerment.

Dr. Chandra Prakash, (2008)63 Azad has discussed different recent Government programmes for empowerment of women. But has opined that the dream of empowerment of women is still a far cry. He has the opinion that empowerment of

60 Padmavathi Dasharathi, Gender Equality, Empowrment and Diversity, New Dimensions of

Women Empowerment, Ajit Kumar Sinha, Deep & Deep Publications pvt. Ltd, New Delhi, 2008, p. 40-54. 61

Nishikant Jha, Women Empowerment, New Dimensions of Women Empowerment, Edited by Ajit Kumar Sinha, Deep & Deep Publications pvt. Ltd, New Delhi, 2008, p. 55-71. 62

Kanak K. Pandey, Goal of Women Welfare: The Problems of Priority for the Planning of Development, New Dimensions of Women Empowerment, Edited by Ajit Kumar Sinha, Deep & Deep Publications pvt. Ltd, New Delhi, 2008, p. 72-84. 63

Chandra Prakash Azad., Empowerment o Women in India- Issues and Challenges, New Dimensions of Women Empowerment, Edited by Ajit Kumar Sinha, Deep & Deep Publications pvt. Ltd, New Delhi, 2008, p. 85-94.

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women through Self-Help Groups is the need of the hour. He has also highlighted the role of Panchayat Raj Institutions for political empowerment of women in India.

Dr. S.M. Jawed Akhtar (2008)64 has highlighted the many facts of women empowerment political, economic, legal, human resource development, capacity building and beyond. He has the opinion that the approach for future should be to bring in holistic approach for women development. Poor women in general and tribal in particular deserve special attention.

Dr. Md. Firdos (2008)65 Ahmad has elaborated various factors responsible for discrimination of women in the system. He has opined that the Government initiatives have failed to give a pace in the women empowerment.

Prof.Jamil Ahmad (2008)66 has highlighted that the experience of the developed countries and India clearly shows that the gender gap is more in India in comparison to developed countries where the gap is minimum, which may be ignored.

Dr. (Mrs.) Mohana Bandkar (2008)67 has discussed different programmes of the Government of India for women empowerment.

64 S.M. Jawed Akhtar, Empowerment of Women in India- Issues and Challenges, New Dimensions

of Women Empowerment, Edited by Ajit Kumar Sinha, Deep & Deep Publications pvt. Ltd, New Delhi, 2008, p. 96-113. 65

Md. Firdos Ahmad, Gender Disparities in India An Analysis, New Dimensions of Women Empowerment, Edited by Ajit Kumar Sinha, Deep & Deep Publications pvt. Ltd, New Delhi, 2008, p. 114-128. 66

Prof.Jamil Ahmad, Gender Inequality and Women Empowerment: A Review, New Dimensions of Women Empowerment, Edited by Ajit Kumar Sinha, Deep & Deep Publications pvt. Ltd, New Delhi, 2008, p. 29-132. 67

Mohana Bandkar, Vialble Measures to be adopted for Women Empowerment on the basis of Pragmatic Consideration for Metamorphosis of the system, New Dimensions of Women Empowerment, Edited by Ajit Kumar Sinha, Deep & Deep Publications pvt. Ltd, New Delhi, 2008, p. 138-146.

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Kurukshetra (2008)68 A Journal on Rural Development, focused mainly on womens empowerment and opined that although women were the active agents for sustainable development, and their empowerment was very important for the process of development, they had not actively participated in their own emancipation mainly due to low economic independence.

Muzamil Janand Shubeena Akhtar, (2008)69 Decision making process is generally influenced by the level of knowledge. Women are the integral part of family and vital force in the socio-economic progress. The present study is undertaken to analyse the Decision-Making Power among married and unmarried women. Scale regarding Decision Making Power among Women constructed by Jan (2004) was used on 100 women, selected through multi-stage sampling method. The paper reveals that there is no significant differences between married and unmarried women regarding their decision making power. However, highly significant differences are observed, between married and unmarried women, related to their empowerment. Women generally possess low decision making power and are mainly dependent on masculine and/or familial decision making.

ICRW (2008)70 This brochure describes the joint ICRW, UNIFEM and World Bank Results-Based Initiatives (RBIs) which pilot innovative programmes aimed at advancing and measuring the impacts of womens economic empowerment, including strengthening womens entrepreneurship and access to markets, linking agricultural productivity and food security, and making gender central to private-sector human resources management.

68 Bidisha Mahanta, Women Empowerment in Assam, A Human Development Approach, 2008.

69 Muzamil Jan*and Shubeena Akhtar, (2008) An Analysis of Decision-Making Power among

Married and Unmarried Women, Stud. Home Comm. Sci., 2(1): 43-50 (2008) 70

ICRW -Results-Based Initiatives. Womens economic empowerment works. We can prove it, Piloting Innovative Strategies Brochure http://www.unifem.org/attachments/products/rbi_brochure.pdf

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EPAG Project (2008)71, the paper concludes that narrowly-focussed vocational programmes are successful at getting young women into decent work in certain socio-economic contexts even where other potential barriers to female youth employment, such as social isolation and domestic responsibilities, are present.

ILO, (2010)72 This evaluation summary reports on the Growth-Oriented Women Entrepreneurs (GOWE) programme in Kenya. The overall project purpose/objective was to create employment and reduce poverty in through the economic empowerment of women focusing on growth-oriented women entrepreneurs and strengthening of their member-based associations and networks.

R. Kasilingam and G. Jayabal, (2010)73 this paper analyses the investors behavioural traits. Investors exhibit different types of behavioural traits when they are involved in the investment activities like information search, evaluating investment avenues and reviewing the investment made. These behavioural traits might vary from individual to individual. To identify these behavioural traits 37 statements were used with five point Likert scale to collect opinion from investors. Some of the behavioural traits identified from this research are commitment, rationale, variety seeking, and dissonance reducing and external locus control. These behavioural traits have impact on investor's decision. Therefore, studying behavioural traits is important for the investment intermediaries who offer investment instruments.

71 EPAG Project, A project summary of the Liberian Economic Empowerment of Adolescent Girls &

Young Women http://www.supportliberia.com/assets/108/EPAG_one-pager_1_.pdf . 72

ILO, Growth-Oriented Women Entrepreneurs (GOWE)-Kenya Program ILO evaluation summary, Geneva, 2010. http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_mas/---eval/documents/publication/wcms_142992.pdf. 73

R. Kasilingam and G. Jayabal 2010), An analysis on the behavioural traits of salaried class investors in Tamil Nadu, International Journal of Services Economics and Management, vol. 2/2010 pg. 180-196.

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P K Mishra, M Malla, (2010)74 This paper is an attempt to analyse the key market parameters such as market size, market liquidity, market turnover ratio, market volatility, and market efficiency of Indian capital market over a period from 2002 to 2009 so as to assess its performance. The application of time series econometrics provides the evidence of greater volatility and weak form inefficiency of the market. However, the market shows strong potential for greater market size,

more liquidity and reasonable market turnover ratio. Therefore, the growth of Indian capital market happens to contribute to the sustainable development of Indian economy.

A.Selvaraj & K. Kanagaraj, (2007)75 Empowerment of Women in the Present Scenario: Issues and Challenges: in their study they indentify about present position of women in society and route corner the way of empowerment. They conclude in their report, Empowerment is process, not an event which challenges traditional power equations and relations. Abolition of gender based discrimination in all institutions and structures of the society and participation of women in policy and decision making processes at domestic and public levels are sewing dimensions of women empowerment. Political empowerment of women alone would not do, along with it should come social and economic empowerment.

A.Valliammai, (2007)76 Economic Empowerment of Women: Theoretical issues this study was aimed to indentify and analysis different aspects of women related to natural, religious and employment issues to identify global gender gap in various ways, to identify various constitutional rights for women empowerment and to provide the suitable measures to improve the status of women. The research work

74 P K Mishra, M Malla (2010) Performance of Indian Capital Market An Empirical Analysis,

European Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Sciences - Issue 23 (2010). 75

V.S.Ganesha Murthy, India: Economic Empowerment of Women, New Century Publications, 2007, pp.24-31. 76

V.S.Ganesha Murthy, India: Economic Empowerment of Women, New Century Publications, 2007, pp. 32-39.

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concludes that education is not merely to prepare women housewives; it has more important constructive and developmental role in promoting women as partners and promoters of economic and social development. Dawn of liberation slowly overtaking the womankind and role of mass media and widespread education shows the empowerment of women is not far off.

Dr. Tapati Sanyal, (2008)77 has focused on the wide inequalities among rural-urban females. She has emphasized on spreading education level, not only literacy rate, at least up to secondary level, because educated women alone can exercise their power. She has concluded that only concerted action by the Government, media and male section of the gender could reduce the disparity between rural-urban females which is the first and foremost condition for successful functioning of women empowerment. She has highlighted the concerted actions amongst Government and the male section of the society and the role of media and press in this regard.

Dr.Anil Kumar Thakur (2008)78 in his paper Need of Women empowerment in India has highlighted the need of women empowerment with the observation that in some ways development process has enhanced male domination over women and added to their deprivation.

Dr.Kumkum Narain and Dr.Meera Mridubhashini, (2008)79 in their paper Empowering Women Through Economic Measures have presented the picture of the poor status of women and the need of the women empowerment. In this connection, they have discussed several programmes launched by the government of

77 Ajit Kumar Sinha, New Dimensions of Women Empowerment, , Deep & Deep Publications Pvt.

Ltd, New Delhi, 2008, p. 147-163. 78

Ajit Kumar Sinha, New Dimensions of Women Empowerment, , Deep & Deep Publications Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi, 2008, p. 164-178. 79

Ajit Kumar Sinha, New Dimensions of Women Empowerment, , Deep & Deep Publications Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi, 2008, p. 179-192.

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India and some of the state Governments to uplift the status of women and empowering them new opportunities. They have emphasized on Micro-finance and Self-Help Group movement, NGOs role for development.

Dr. Rais Ahmad (2008)80 has emphasised on the micro-financing through Self-Help Group (SHGs) as the very successful instrument for eradication of poverty of women sector and their empowerment on the world of Grameen Bank of Bangaladesh, started by Professor Muhammed Yunus in 1976.

Dr.Priyam Krishna, (2008)81 in her paper Women Power Through Self-Help Group has emphasized on role of Self-Help Groups for women empowerment. In this connection the roles of micro-credit and NGOs have also emphasised.

Dr. G.S. Monga and K.M. Rege, (2008)82 in their paper entitled Empowerment from within and without Towards Self-Actualisation have expressed that empowerment may emerge either from within or from without or both. When the idea empowerment flows from Government decisions, as the case in India it becomes superimposed and attainment of goal remains partial. But when it emerges from within, i.e. when the women themselves feel the need for recasting, which is not related to the power equation in society, it leads to the development of self-reliant women. Self-actualisation process is essentially needed for women empowerment from within.

80 Ajit Kumar Sinha, New Dimensions of Women Empowerment, , Deep & Deep Publications Pvt.

Ltd, New Delhi, 2008, p. 237-267. 81

Ajit Kumar Sinha, New Dimensions of Women Empowerment, , Deep & Deep Publications Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi, 2008. 82

Ajit Kumar Sinha, New Dimensions of Women Empowerment, , Deep & Deep Publications Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi, 2008, p. 329-349.

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Dr.Abdus Salam, (2008)83 has focused on the well established fact that education is the most significant factor that has highest degree of positive correlation with social and economic empowerment.

Dr.Md.Marjorie Fernandes, (2008)84 has also emphasized on education as the key measurre for empowerment of women in India. Education should be taken as organizational strategy and capacity building strategy for bringing gender equality.

Dr.Shradha Jain and Ravi Kumar Jain, (2008)85 have expressed that higher education is one of the main tools to bring about women empowerment. They have suggested a number of policies for women empowerment, mainly related to higher education.

Dr.D.M. Diwakar, (2008)86 has the opinion that economic empowerment could provide better access to resources and benefits of modern development and therefore enable them to acquire better socio-cultural and political position to reinforce better economic states and quality of life. Prof. Diwakar has evaluated the policies and programs of women empowerment in context of Uttar Pradesh, where female remuneration is pathetically low.

Dr.Awadhesh K.Sinha, (2008)87 has presented the case of women workers in Uttar Pradesh in his empirical paper. Economic empowerment is the central point in

83 Ajit Kumar Sinha, New Dimensions of Women Empowerment, , Deep & Deep Publications Pvt.

Ltd, New Delhi, 2008, p. 350-373. 84

Ajit Kumar Sinha, New Dimensions of Women Empowerment, , Deep & Deep Publications Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi, 2008, p. 374-383. 85

Ajit Kumar Sinha, New Dimensions of Women Empowerment, , Deep & Deep Publications Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi, 2008, p. 387-399. 86

Ajit Kumar Sinha, New Dimensions of Women Empowerment, , Deep & Deep Publications Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi, 2008, p. 510-523. 87

Ajit Kumar Sinha, New Dimensions of Women Empowerment, , Deep & Deep Publications Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi, 2008.

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the field. A number of suggestions have been given to raise the level of income of the workers for smoothness in the road to empowerment.

M. Soundarapandian, (2008)88 Economic Empowerment of Women, he concludes the empowerment may arise educational, economic, psychological, social and political interlink.

Jay Anand, (2000)89 Microfinance in Kerala reveals that micro planning turned out to be an extremely effective tool in poverty alleviation and improving peoples participation in the development process. This innovation of self help groups and the micro credit has helped the poor especially women to gain the better access to credit facilities and ultimately in promoting micro level savings and credit self help groups.

Gladis Mary Jhon, (2008)90 Women Empowerment through Self Help Groups, states that self empowerment through self help groups has increased the earning capacity and economic independence and has given an important place in the decision making process with the families. They have got more courage to go out and interact with others. More awareness should be given to all women, about their role in family and society by conducting meetings and training programme.

B.V Chalapathi, B.V., Raghavulu, and P.Hariprasad, (2008)91 Gender Equality Empowerment of Women reveals that empowerment means not just economic independence and it is much more than that when women are economically

88 Ajit Kumar Sinha, New Dimensions of Women Empowerment, , Deep & Deep Publications Pvt.

Ltd, New Delhi, 2008. 89

Jay Anand, Microfinance in Kerala, The monthly journal of kurukshetra, Ministry of Rural Development, Vol. 48, No. 11, August 2000. 90

Gladis Mary Jhon, Women Empowerment through Self Help Groups, Southern Economist, March 2008. 91

B.V Chalapathi, B.V., Raghavulu, and P.Hariprasad, Gender Equality Empowerment of Women, Southern Economist, July,15,2008.

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independent they can progress well in different spheres of life investment is also part of empowerment and women are being provided loans for investment.

Dr Suvarna Sen, and Ishita Mukherjee, (2008)92 The Changing Status of Women in India-The Challenges Ahead This article attempts to provide a contemporary overview of gender and development concerns in India. It throws light on the various aspects of gender related issues by examining the trends in womens employment, wages, literacy and school enrolment. This is followed by an analysis of the trends in womens health and participation in political decision making process .In India, the challenges faced by women in dealing with issues relating to their deprivation, are manifold. Although the process of womens empowerment has been successful to a certain extent, gender related socioeconomic biases still exist. These can be addressed by properly identifying the areas of concern and implementing suitable policies, which this article attempts to focus on.

2.3 Reviews of Investor Behaviour in Indian Capital Market Investment

The existing Behavioural Finance studies are very few and very little information is available about investor perceptions, preferences, attitudes and behaviour. All efforts in this direction are fragmented. In India, one of the earliest attempts was made by NCAER in 1964 when a survey of households was undertaken to understand the attitude towards and motivation for saving of individuals.

Narayana (1976)93 in his study on income, saving and investment of household sector in Chittor district in Andhra Pradesh found that the most important forms of urban financial investment were bank deposits, share and securities which accounted for a share of 28 percent, next in importance was currency with the share

92 Ajit Kumar Sinha, New Dimensions of Women Empowerment, , Deep & Deep Publications Pvt.

Ltd, New Delhi, 2008. 93

Narayan, D.L, Income, Saving And Investment Of Household Sector In Chittor District, S. Chand & Co. ltd New Delhi, 1976, pp. 1-187.

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of about 22 percent. The study covered the financial year 1973-74 and analyzed the rural and urban household characteristics.

De Bondt and Thaler (1985)94 while investigating the possible psychological basis for investor behaviour, argue that mean reversion in stock prices is an evidence of investor over reaction where investors overemphasize recent firm performance in

forming future expectations.

L.C Gupta (1987)95 conducted a comprehensive study, on Shareholders Survey-Geographic Distribution on behalf of Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India. The study covered resident individual holders of industrial securities focusing primarily on equity shareholders. It was based on the sample of 109031 security holders drawn from 165 companies distributed over various regions of the country. The data relates to the year 1983-84. The study brings out the dominant share of the metropolitan cities and within such cities, of Bombay in the countrys shareholding population was that they lack the infrastructure needed for facilitating share transactions.

Reddy and Narayan (1987)96 Women play a crucial role in the economic welfare of the family. Women perform different tasks depending on their Socio-economic structure, number of people in the family, the nature of professions they are involved in and many other factors.

L.C. Gupta (1990)97 on Indian Share-Owners A Survey on behalf of Society for Capital Market Research and Development, which was published in

94 De Bondt, W.F.M. and Thaler, R, Does the stock market over react? Journal of Finance, 1985,

40, 793-805. 95

Gupta L.C , conducted a comprehensive study, on Shareholders Survey-Geographic Distribution ICICI and SCMRD, New Delhi, 1987. 96

Reddy GN, Reddy Suna Narayana.. Women and Child Development. Allahabad: Chugh Publishing House, 1987. 97

Gupta L.C. Indian Share-Owners A Survey on behalf of Society for Capital Market Research and Development, New Delhi, 1991. www.scmrd.org.

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1991. The study attempted to gather comprehensive All-India data on household investment preference among financial instruments. He further conducted a second round of household investors survey in 1992 on Mutual Fund and Asset preference which was published in 1993. It focused on mutual funds in a broad perspective of household investment preferences. The most striking changes during the studies were (a) massive shift towards unit or mutual fund products; (b) a moderate continuing shift towards shares and debentures; and (c) a shift away from traditionally important financial assets like NSC, LIC, bank fixed deposits and company deposits. The study points out that the ownership incidence among households of units of UTI and new mutual fund products together raised from 37 percent in mid 1990 to 65.1 percent in mid 1992 i.e. a rise of 28.1 percent over a short period of 2 years. The ownership incidence of shares and debentures has also grown from 40 percent in 1990 to 51.8 percent in 1992.

Ippolito (1992)98 says that fund/scheme selection by investors is based on past performance of the funds and money flows into winning funds more rapidly than they flow out of losing funds.

Mudra- SAMIRS (1992)99 survey on Working womens awareness and attitude toward various saving avenues brings out that working women in urban India put one fifth of their earnings aside as savings. Awareness exists on various saving avenues and mutual funds have not found much presence.

Mayya M.R. (1993)100 has given a compact picture of Bombay stock Exchange in the past, present and future and profoundly believe in the future scenario

98 Ippolito, R., Consumer reaction to measures of poor quality : Evidence from Mutual Funds,

Journal of Law and Economics, 1992, 35, 45-70. 99

Mudra- SAMIRs Survey. Economic Times, 2 September, 1992. 100

Mayya M.R., The Bombay Stock Exchangeg: Past, Present and Future, Charted Secretary, Vol. XXII, July 1993, pp. 656-659.

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of BSE in terms of its development.Abraham and David L. Ikenberry (1994)101 have conducted a study to investigate the week and effect on individual investor and found that it is substantially the consequence of information revealed in prior trading sessions, particularly on Fridays. Individuals in general tend to use Monday as an opportunity to satisfy liquidity needs.

Sarkar A.K. (1994)102 reports that there is need to continue the reform process undertaken by the Government to strengthen and promote the growth of the Indian Capital Market.

Rangarajan C (1994)103 clearly expresses the problems, prospects and agenda for reforms in the capital market in India is bound to grow in size with the introduction of private participation and public sector companies to the capital market to access funds.

Patil R.H (1994)104 has identified the developments in capital market in India. The major requirement for the development of a healthy market is the presence of active bond dealers who not only act as intermediaries but also make markets deal in debt instruments.

Gupta (1994)105 made a household investor survey with the objective to provide data on the investor preferences on MFs and other financial assets. The

101 Abraham and David L. Ikenberry, The Individual Investors and Week end Effect, The Journal of

Financial and Quantitative Analysis. Vol.29, No.2, June 1994, pp. 263 277. 102

Sarkar A.K., Indian capital Market New Dimensions, Charted Secretary, Vol. XXIV No. 9, Sep. 1994, pp. 803-807. 103

Rangarajan C., Bhole L.M Problems, Prospects and Prescriptions, Reserve Bank of India Bulletin, July 1994, pp. 841 845. 104

Patil R.H .,Capital Market Developments, The Journal of Indian Institute of Bankers, Vol. 65, No. 3, July Sep., 1994, pp. 106 -110. 105

Gupta, L.C., Mutual Funds and Asset Preference, Society for Capital Market Research and Development, Delhi. 1994.

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findings of the study were more appropriate, at that time, to the policy makers and mutual funds to design the financial products for the future.

Kulshreshta (1994)106 offers certain guidelines to the investors in selecting the mutual fund schemes.

Bhole L.M (1995)107 has analysed the major trends, changes, problems, and issues relating to primary and secondary markets over a period of 40 years and suggest various reforms for restoring the health of the capital market. An increase in

the number of share holders and an increase in the new issues activity by themselves do not mean that equity culture has arrived because such trends have been accompanied by a number of countervailing trends and dysfunctional development and practices

Singh N.K. (1995)108 aims to bring out the latest developments in capital market reforms and concludes that small investors who could stay away from market may not get allotment in good issues. Direct participation is made difficult due to reduced publicity costs.

MIMAP- India Project (1996) - Micro Impacts of Macroeconomic and Adjustment Polices, initiated in 1994, examined household savings and investment behaviour. Preliminary results indicate that urban average household savings are 2.6 percent times larger than that of rural households. Since a similar survey of households was conducted in 1975-76, a significant changes occurred in the preference for financial investment in rural and for physical investment in urban areas. It is observed that savings is highly concentrated. Slightly less than two-third of the gross savings in the household sector originated in 8.8 percent of households.

106 Kulshreshta, C.M., Mastering Mutual Funds, Vision Books, New Delhi, 1994.

107 Bhole L.M , The Indian capital Market at cross roads, Vikalpa, Vol. 20, No. 20, April June,

1995, pp. 22-38. 108

Singh N.K., Update Capital Market, The Management Accountant, Vol. 30, No. 11, November, 1995, pp. 853-854.

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The share of top ten percent of households in rural areas, when arranged in ascending order of their savings, was 73 per cent of the total household savings in their rural areas (compared to 55 per cent in urban households). Scheduled tribes and scheduled castes have higher saving rates than would have been expected on the basis of their income. This suggests that the vulnerable save largely for precautionary reasons. More than 25 per cent of all household physical investments are in the form of gold and jewelers. This indicates the extent to which the savings of the community are diverted towards unproductive uses.

NCAER study in 1996 analysed the structure of the capital market and presented the views and attitudes of individual shareholders.

Jain S.K (1996)109 has examined the avenues for investors to get benefit from the current capital market situations. The stock market investors sentimentally

remained weak throughout the year 1995. Stock market reeled under continuous bearish phases. The main reason for the slump in the secondary market is due to severe liquidity crunch and over supply of papers.

Madhusudhan V Jambodekar (1996)110 conducted a study to assess the awareness of MFs among investors, to identify the information sources influencing the buying decision and the factors influencing the choice of a particular fund. The study reveals among other things that Income Schemes and Open Ended Schemes are more preferred than Growth Schemes and Close Ended Schemes during the then prevalent market conditions. Investors look for safety of Principal, Liquidity and Capital appreciation in the order of importance; Newspapers and Magazines are the first source of information through which investors get to know about MFs/Schemes

109 Jain S.K, How to benefit from the current Capital Market Situation, The Management Accountant,

Vol. 31, No. 3, March, 1996, pp. 177-181. 110

Madhusudan V. Jambodekar, Marketing Strategies of Mutual Funds Current Practices and Future Directions, Working Paper, UTI IIMB Centre for Capital Markets Education and Research, Bangalore, 1996.

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and investor service is a major differentiating factor in the selection of Mutual Fund Schemes.

Sujit Sikidar and Amrit Pal Singh (1996)111 carried out a survey with an objective to understand the behavioural aspects of the investors of the North Eastern region towards equity and mutual funds investment portfolio. The survey revealed that the salaried and self employed formed the major investors in mutual fund primarily due to tax concessions. UTI and SBI schemes were popular in that part of the country then and other funds had not proved to be a big hit during the time when survey was done.

Shankar (1996)112 points out that the Indian investors do view Mutual Funds as commodity products and AMCs, to capture the market should follow the consumer product distribution model.

Maiti (1997)113 observes various aspects of the shareholding pattern and come to the conclusion that shareholding is mainly restricted to ten cities in India and that institutional investors show a loyalty to blue chip companies leading to an asymmetry in market information as regards investment in stocks.

Goetzman (1997)114 state that there is evidence that investor psychology affects fund/scheme selection and switching.

Sarkar A.K (1997)115 has identified the recent developments and their implications for the Indian capital market. Some of the important problems which

111 Sujit Sikidar and Amrit Pal Singh, Financial Services : Investment in Equity and Mutual Funds

A Behavioural Study, and Bhatia B.S., and Batra G.S., ed., Management of Financial Services, Deep and Deep Publications, New Delhi, 1996, Chapter 10, 136-145. 112

Shankar, V., Retailing Mutual Funds : A consumer product model, The Hindu, July 1996, pp.24, 26. 113

Maiti, S.K, Indian Capital Market: Some Emerging Trends, Finance India, 1997, pp. 606-618. 114

Goetzman, W.N., Cognitive Dissonance and Mutual Fund Investors, The Journal of Financial Research 20, Summer 1997, 145-158.

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plague the Indian stock exchanges are delayed transfer of shares, delayed and non-receipt of refund orders, bad deliveries and liquidity of the market.

Beverly R. walther (1997)116 has studied investor sophistication and market earnings expectation and concluded that although analyst forecasts are generally accurate, market earnings expectations do not consistently follow these forecasts. Neither the publication of analyst forecasts for a subset nor the greater accuracy of analyst forecasts explains these results.

Syama Sunder (1998)117 conducted a survey to get an insight into the mutual fund operations of private institutions with special reference to Kothari Pioneer. The survey revealed that awareness about Mutual Fund concept was poor during that time in small cities like Visakhapatnam. Agents play a vital role in spreading the Mutual Fund culture; open-end schemes were much preferred then; age and income are the two important determinants in the selection of the fund/scheme; brand image and return are the prime considerations while investing in any Mutual Fund.

P.K. Bandgar (1999)118 reveals that most investors consider own study and observation as an important factor for their investment decision and many investors face difficulties in buying or selling the instruments and their difficulties covered the problems like inadequate prices, transfer delays etc. Most investors do not know about safety of new issues of company shares, debentures and share bought on stock exchanges. Middle class investors lack in skill and knowledge in investing and rate new issue of company shares relatively unsafe investment.

115 Sarkar A.K , Indian capital Market Recent Developments and their Implications, The

Management Accountant, Vol. 32, No. 3, March 1997, pp 173 -179. 116

Beverly R. walther, Investors Sophistication and Market Earnings Expectations, Journal of Accounting Research, vol. 35, No. 2, Autumm 1997, pp. 157 -179. 117

Syama Sundar, P.V., Growth Prospects of Mutual Funds and Investor perception with special reference to Kothari Pioneer Mutual Fund, Project Report, Sri Srinivas Vidya Parishad, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, 1998. 118

Bandgar, P.K., A Study of Middle Class Investors Preferences for Financial Instruments in Greater Bombay, Finance India, Vol.XIV, No. 2, June, 2000. Pp. 574-576.

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Nidhi Jain (1999)119 has started that the agenda for further reforms of capital markets in India broadly comprises the developments in the debt market, revival of equity markets and improved disclosures and corporate governance standards, reforms in insurance and pension funds to enable the flow of funds in infrastructure and the emergence of financial derivatives and risk management products.

SEBI NCAER Survey (2000)120was carried out to estimate the number of households and the population of individual investors, their economic and demographic profile, portfolio size, and investment preference for equity as well as other savings instruments. This is a unique and comprehensive study of Indian Investors, for; data was collected from 3,00,0000 geographically dispersed rural and urban households. Some of the relevant findings of the study are: Households preference for instruments match their risk perception; Bank Deposit has an appeal

across all income class; 43percent of the non-investor households equivalent to around 60 million households (estimated) apparently lack awareness about stock markets; and, compared with low income groups, the higher income groups have higher share of investments in Mutual Funds (MFs) signifying that MFs have still not become truly the investment vehicle for small investors. Nevertheless, the study predicts that in the next two years (i.e., 2000 hence) the investment of households in MFs is likely to increase. We have to wait and watch the investors reaction to the July 2nd 2001, great fall of the Big Brother, UTI. (Note: Behaviour is a reaction to a situation. So as situation changes, behaviour gets modified. Hence, findings and predictions of behaviour studies should be viewed accordingly).

119 Nidhi Jain (1999), Restructuring Capital Market, Charted Secretary, Vol. XXIX, September,

1999, pp. 982 990. 120

SEBI NCAER, 2000, Survey of Indian Investors, SEBI, Mumbai.

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Shanmugham (2000)121 conducted a survey of 201 individual investors to study the information sourcing by investors, their perceptions of various investment strategy dimensions and the factors motivating share investment decisions, and reports that among the various factors, psychological and sociological factors dominated the economic factors in share investment decisions.

Anjan Chakarabarti and Harsh Rungta(2000)122 stressed the importance of brand effect in determining the competitive position of the AMCs. Their study reveals that brand image factor, though cannot be easily captured by computable performance measures, influences the investors perception and hence his fund/scheme selection.

L.C. Gupta, C.P. Gupta and Naveen Jain (2001)123, maintained a broad perspective with a wide range of investment types. This survey was conducted on all India bases which covered a cross section of 2819 households. The survey was with special reference to investors attitude towards corporate bonds and other capital market instruments. The survey analysis focused particularly towards the understanding of durable features of retail investors attitude. The most striking finding was that an overwhelming majority of retail investors shun private sector bonds due to default risk. Over all, the proportion of bond owning householders in the sample is 55 percent. On the other hand, 83 percent households owned Governments saving schemes, 75 percent were holding fixed deposits with banks. As high 76 percent investors were in mutual funds. The lowest income class, as whole, showed preference for bank fixed deposit over Government saving schemes. The tax-free

121 Shanmugham, R., Factors Influencing Investment Decisions, Indian Capital Markets Trends

and Dimensions (ed.), Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Company Limited, New Delhi, 2000.

122 Anjan Chakrabarti and Harsh Rungta, Mutual Funds Industry in India : An in-depth look into the

problems of credibility, Risk and Brand, The ICFAI Journal of Applied Finance, Vol.6, No.2, April, 2000, pp.27-45. 123

Gupta, L.C,. Gupta, C.P and Naveen Jain, Indian Households Investment Preferences The Third All India Investors Survey, ICFAI Journal of Applied Finance, Vol. 7, No. 2, April, 2001, pp. 118-121.

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bond has been found to be popular with the high tax brackets. The bulk of the retail demand for bonds is for relatively short maturities. The maximum acceptable maturity was accepted as one to three years. Analysis showed that the investment in shares and bonds was an urban phenomenon.

Sahoo M.S (2002)124 expresses the reasons for the prevailing financial condition of Indian stock exchanges. It is found that multiplicity of exchanges, financial health of exchanges, economic viability, withdrawal of protection are the main reasons that must be taken care of for the successful functioning of capital markets in India.

Kamalesh Vikamsey (2002)125 analyses the trends of future of capital market in India. Dhananjoy Rakshit (2003)126 explains the awareness of investors in the stock market, process of trading and settlement in secondary market, modus operandi of stock prices and code of conduct for brokers / sub brokers regarding their duties to the investors.

Meir Statman (2003)127 is of the opinion that investors in the early 20th century and today are tempted by the lure of big money from the latest technology stocks. Yesterdays investors could hardly imagine todays internet but they hoped as intently to make their fortunes from mines, automobiles, and the wireless telegraph.

124 Sahoo M.S., Financial of Indian Stock Exchanges Charted Secretary, Vol. XXXII, 2002, pp.

1003 -1009. 125

Kamalesh Vikamsey (2002),Capital Market Future in India The Charted Accountant, vol. XXXII, July 2002, pp. 89 94. 126

Dhananjoy Rakshit, Investor Awrness in Stock Market. Charted Secretary, Vol. XXXII, March 2002, pp. 315-319. 127

Meir Statman, A Century of investors. Financial Analyst Journal, Vol. 59, No. 3, May June 2003, pp. 52-68.

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Eresi K. and Vasantavallli C. (2003)128 have studied the issue of perception of individual investors in relation to the risk disclosures made in offer documents by IT companies.

Sarma S.N (2004)129 examines the presence of seasonality in the Indian stock market returns during the post liberalization period. Using the log returns data on the popularly used BSE indices, sensex and BSE200 for the period January 1st 1996 to August 10th 2002, the study provides evidences to the presence of seasonality across the days of the week. It confirms the conclusions of earlier studies as to the leptokurtic distribution of equity returns; presence of highest variance on Mondays; weekend effect, and regularity of returns across the indices.

Harvinder Kaur (2004)130 asserts that the implications for investors are also important for the stock exchange administrators and policy makers. The surveillance regime around the budget should be stricter to keep excessive volatility under check. There is no reason to concern over the spillover for the US markets as the evidence suggests weak and somewhat inconsistent relationship between the two markets.

Sullivan, O. (2004)131 while much attention has been focused on transforming gender relations in the public sphere, changes in the domestic sphere have been less fully addressed in the theoretical literature. This paper explores the idea of doing gender understood as the interactions between men and women in the domestic sphere, which bring about transformations in gender relations. It is the interface between these daily interactive processes of change and changes at the level of

128 Eresi K. and Vasantavallli C., Perceptions of Individual Investors vis-a vis Risk Disclosure in IT

companies IPOs- A study, Indian Journal of Accounting, Vol. XXXIII, June 2003, pp. 10-16. 129

Sarma S.N., Stock Market Seasonality in an Emerging Market, Vikalpa, Vol. 29, No. 3, July- September 2004, pp. 35-43. 130

Harvinder Kaur, Time Varying Volatility in the Indian Stock Market, Vikalpa Vol. 29, No. 4, October December 2004, pp. 24-42. 131

Sullivan, O., Changing Gender Practices within the Household: A Theoretical Perspective, Gender and Society, 18, 2: 207-222 http://gas.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/18/2/207.

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ideology or gender consciousness which underpins the approach proposed by this paper. Women and mens day-to-day negotiations and struggles around the domestic division of labour should be understood within such a framework, as part of a wider social process that involves slow transformative changes in consciousness and practice.

Abdul Abiad and Asoka Mody (2005)132 have analysed the determinants of financial reform using a newly constructed cross-country database of financial liberlisation covering 35 countries.

Sachithanantham V. and Syed Zafar M. (2006)133 surveyed capital market reforms and their impact on investors. They concluded that credit rating agencies should rate the shares also. Further they suggest that SEBI should attract rural investors by conducting various awareness programmes to tap the rural investors.

Gade Surendar and Kamaleshwar Rao S. (2011)134 the study reveals that retail investors opinion is similar on majority aspects relevant to IPOs at the same time study did find that there are some problems with IPOs, major problem out of the mentioned is the adequacy of 35 percent reservation for retail investors. They find out that Male investors constitute a large majority 80.4 percent as compared to 19.6 percent of the female investors. Retail investors are not happy with 35 percent reservation in IPOs. They are expecting more than this. The other problems are Refund on IPO application is received without delay, IPO allotment are credited to investors demat account before listing of the allotted shares, Payment of 100 percent of the bid amount at the time of applying for IPOs. The study has stated some

132 Abdul Abiad and Asoka Mody., Financial Reform: Wha